Todos Contra Zucker!

"Go for Zucker! (Alles auf Zucker!)" is a broad, comic take on East vs. West reconciliation issues in Germany today that was done better in "Goodbye, Lenin!."

Co-writer/director Dani Levy goes further in making German audiences comfortable to laugh at their 20th century history by somewhat ridiculously adding in the Jewish issue, both past and contemporary. He makes it safe to joke about the Holocaust and its aftermath.

There have been countless comedies through the decades that have scheming beneficiaries pretend something or other in order to claim an inheritance (marriage, children, etc. etc.). Here, the premise is Jewish brothers and their families separated by the construction of the Berlin Wall need to reconcile and be observant Jews. But the joke, as they accuse each other, is that one grew up with the religious attitudes of Stalin and the other like the Ayatollah.

This is first played for very broad laughs, as the ex-Communist brother's estranged Aryan wife frantically tries to learn Jewish household rules through a kind of "Kosher for Dummies" book, while he's off gambling. Similarly, the Orthodox Jewish family displays every stiff visual stereotype of piety known to film, from the long beards to the triple chins on the wife.

The actors playing the older generation who lived through Germany's traumas are very world-weary effective. There's a lot of running around like a French parlor comedy. Their adult kids are mostly silly and too slapsticky sexually confused. Maybe it's a German comic thing that the men are all passive dolts, the women are sexually aggressive and their relationships make no sense.

The best parts of the film are when the brother from the East is comically doing his funny grifter thing to get into a pool tournament and, at the opposite end of the emotional spectrum, when the brothers actually start to communicate about how history tore up their family. This makes history personal and poignant amidst the laughs. Everyone turns out to have faults and secrets, including the rabbi who is supposed to moderate. Some of the Frankfurt vs. Berlin jokes probably have more meaning to the German audience.

For all the film's silliness and stereotypes, it does end up endearing.

The subtitling is very difficult for an American audience. The opening credits are very funny, with the Eastern brother talking to and over the camera (a technique that continues throughout the swooping camera work). However, the subtitles are mixed in with the credits and are impossible to read. The subtitlers just assumed that any English speakers coming to see the film would understand Yiddish, as all the Yiddish expressions by the Western brother and his family are just transliterated as Yiddish and are not translated, though some words are not that widely part of American conversation and could be a problem for some viewers.

I usually find German comedies about as amusing as bad diarrhea. I love German cinema but films like "Der Schuh des Manitus" and the entire "Otto" series have traumatised me to the point where I now just stick with German dramas and thrillers. Therefore, it was a big surprise to find that Alles Auf Zucker is not only an extremely well made and acted film, but also very funny.

The set up in Alles Auf Zucker has been done many times before, bringing two mismatched parties together in order to reach a common goal. In this case, brothers Jaeckie and Samuel are forced to end their long running feud and strictly follow Jewish customs for 7 days after the funeral of their mother in order to accept her inheritance. The twist being that while Samuel's family live as orthodox Jews, Jaeckie has entirely forgotten his religion. Many of the laughs stem from Jaeckie's wife's last minute crash-course in Jewish culture and Jaeckie's general disinterest.

The film owes a lot of its charm to Henry Huebchen, who plays Jaeckie, and Hannelore Elsner, who plays his wife. Alles Auf Zucker is really built around Huebchen's performance and he is effortlessly convincing as an endearing loser. Elsner, in my opinion the best actress working in Germany at the moment, brings her usual skill and world weary charm to what is really little more than a supporting role. Udo Samel also deserves praise for his turn as Samuel, fleshing out a character that could have been little more than a stereotype in the hands of a lesser actor.

In addition to some fine performances, Alles Auf Zucker is also blessed with a witty script and stylish direction by Dani Levy. These qualities more than make-up for some lazy plotting, such as Samuel's Ecstasy experience, and the unnecessary touches of whimsy that have Jaeckie speak directly to the audience. I think the film could have also done without the creepy inter-cousin romance. Nevertheless, these are minor faults with what is a very funny and charming film.

A pretty good, though not outstanding comedy with a pretty amazing premise. A Jewish mother dies, leaving a will that will only be decided if she's given a proper Jewish burial, and if her two sons would bury the hatchet. The problem is, is that one of her sons is totally Orthodox Jewish, and the other one is definitely not. BUT WE'LL TRY! Oh right, the unorthodox guy has an important pool tournament that takes place smack in the middle of the Jewish observance of his Mom's death. Plenty of other problems raise their head, and most of it is quite funny. The script though, does lose steam about 3/4 of the way through, but this made me laugh at the right places,

Lighten up. It's a movie. It's not real life. Enjoy it for what it is. I laughed out loud in the theater continually. These are romantic movie characters. My belief was definitely suspended. i recommend this movie to others constantly as one of the best I've seen this year. Reality TV is no more real than these characters. It's refreshing to finally see a German comedy rather than the pap that the American cinema churns out. There are many twists in this movie that will add levity to your day. Go Go Go And take someone with you. Germany has become so strict and gloomy in the world's eye that it's great they can cross boundaries that many are scared to talk about. C'mon we're all people. We all have beliefs. We should be able to laugh at ourselves and certainly have to ability to see the human in this mortal existence.

Wow, I can't say for how long I have been waiting for a film like this! I was always looking enviously over to America where they have films with, say, a dozen characters and one of them happens to be Jewish. But neither the Shoah is mentioned, nor Israel nor any other "typically Jewish" topics. These characters are Jewish like others are catholic or Mormon or atheist. Great. We never had this here in the last decades and I wondered when at last we would be treated to films like that made in Germany.

This film might not be 100% brilliant, but it's funny, it's very good and worth its while and money. Originally made only for Arte TV, they decided to get it into cinema first. And what a great idea this was! Hopefully more films like this will follow, so that we all can go another step on the way back to normal. Because it is normal to see black German characters, Turkish-German characters and Jewish German characters and what else in films and series and plays. So, writers, sit yourself down and write. Directors and producers are hopefully waiting for good scripts! They better be...